Chaim Potok wrote The Chosen, a novel whose story includes Jewish boys approaching adulthood and religious expectations.
Published in 1967, The Chosen follows Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, two boys from different Jewish communities in Brooklyn. Their friendship develops against a background of religious study, family authority, Zionism, and questions about inherited tradition.
Bar mitzvah age is part of the novel’s wider setting because the boys are growing toward religious and social responsibility. However, The Chosen is not a guide to bar mitzvah practice and should not be treated as a documentary account of every Jewish community.
Chaim Potok was an American rabbi, novelist, and scholar. The novel became his best-known work and was followed by a sequel, The Promise, published in 1969. The Chosen was also adapted into a 1981 film.